


Requiem for a Todd

by icarusinflight



Series: JayRoyweek2016 [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Jason Todd discussed, Mourning, no actual Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusinflight/pseuds/icarusinflight
Summary: Jason was dead and the clown had killed him and Roy would never hear his voice, never hear his laugh again.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Day 1-Robin Jason](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462101) by [the_authors_exploits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits). 



> Jeez this took me a while. Sorry!  
> This is for the prompt Robin Jason. Please check out the author exploits who inspires me and did a much better job of this prompt.  
> I'm still not entirely happy with it. But I hope it comes off appropriately, thank you for reading!
> 
> Also, I have the absolute worst titles, apologies for my corny titles

Jason was dead.

Jason was dead and the clown had killed him. No. The clown had murdered him.

Roy would never hear his voice, never hear his laugh again.

Jason was dead and it felt like the world should be pausing, everyone should be mourning the death of the kid taken before his time. He wants to stop people, to yell at them, _don’t you know? Can’t you feel that the world is a little bit duller now without him in it?_

There had been a ceremony of course. Two actually.

One for the boy Jason Peter Todd. Roy hadn’t been invited, there was no reason for Roy Harper, an 18 year old from Star City, would know Jason Todd, a 15 year old _kid_ who had been murdered.

And the league had held a ceremony for the Robin that had died. They made the ceremony run all day, had recorded the speeches from Batman and Nightwing, from M’Gann and Black Canary so they could be replayed all day, so that any members who wanted to pay their respects could come when they could. The youngest Green Lantern had bawled through the speeches. A few of the younger team had spent most of the day in the meeting hall that day.

Roy had stayed as well. It felt like the least he could do.

Now all they had was a holographic statue.

He knew from Dick that there was one at the batcave too. Except that one wasn’t holographic. One of Jason’s old costumes had been put up in the batcave with the inscription “a good soldier”

Roy thinks it’s disgusting. Jason was a lot of things. Jason was annoying. Jason was loud. Jason was a reader and a little knowitall and would beat them all at trivial pursuit and he was both a sore loser _and_ a sore winner. Jason was a hero.

But he has never been a soldier.

 ** _Had_** _never been a soldier_ his mind supplies usefully.

And now would never get the chance to be anything.

He feels like throwing up. Again.

 

* * *

 

Whilst Jason deserved every statue and tombstone and plaque which had been erected in his honour ( _in his memory)_ , the statues just weren’t enough for Roy.

The statues were static. Dead things which would never be able to convey just how _alive_ Jason had been.

And so Roy searched for his own way to remember Jason. Which tonight involved drinking until he couldn’t stand up anymore, and chain smoking a pack of Jason’s cigarettes he’d found stuffed beneath the mattress of Jason’s room in the mountain.

Not that it was helping much. But he didn’t think anything would really.

A fantastic (terrible) idea springs into his mind around beer number 4 and cigarette number 3. He’s not used to the cigarettes and they’re leaving his mouth feeling gross and his lungs feeling worse, so he’s trying to find an alternative that doesn’t involve smoking the rest of the pack tonight. And part of him had realised that if he smoked them he’d then have nothing left of Jason.

Which led to the current idea. Breaking into Jason’s room at the mountain, and taking something of Jason’s to remember him by.

It wasn’t really a good idea. Good ideas wouldn’t even take the time to glance at this idea. Good ideas probably teased this idea like all the reindeers used to tease Rudolph, _and oh geez his metaphors were getting abstract, he’d definitely had enough to drink._

But hey, _you only live once right?_

His insides churned again at the thought.

Or maybe that’s the booze turning his insides against him.

As he snuck along the corridors silently, only realising when he turns the corner to Jason’s room that his sneaking will have been pointless. There’s always cameras on in the mountain, and even if he is not detected now, once they discover Jason’s room has been broken into, it would be the simplest thing for Nightwing, or another of the bat’s to review the camera footage, and discover his guilt.

But he’s committed to this plan, and he continues to Jason’s door as stealthily as he can, before coming to rest next to the door to Jason’s room.

He turned to look at the panel, debating how to break his way in when he noticed that the panel is telling him the door was already unlocked.

Not one to question his luck, he pressed his hand to the panel to open the door, and swiftly entered the room.

_Oh_

_Well_

_That explained the unlocked door_

Dick looked up at him from his position on the floor. His mouth hung open a little, presumably shocked to find someone entering Robin’s room.

Roy hopes Dick hadn’t been thinking he was Jason.

“Hey” Roy breaks the silence, has to break the silence, can’t bear the silence or the way Dick is looking at him “what are you up to?” he motions to the items and boxes that surround Dick like a castle fortress.

Dick finally breaks eye contact with him, and glances back down at his surroundings.

“Oh… umm, this” he pauses, swallows, then starts again “I’m packing up Jason’s stuff. We’re gonna take it back to the mansion”

“Oh”

It makes sense. Of course it does, a part of him had probably known this and that’s why he’d been so determined to execute his plan tonight. His plan that very much didn’t look like it was going to work out now. It had been a terrible plan.

“What are you doing here?”

Dick’s question brings him out of his thoughts.

Well. Commit to this terrible plan.

“I was going to take something of Jason’s”

“What?” Dick splutters, eyes wide staring at Roy now “why would you do that? You can’t steal his stuff!”

Roy rushes to explain to him “It’s not like that! Nothing big. I just… wanted something to remember him with”

_Don’t say it’s not like he’ll miss it, don’t say it’s not like he’ll miss it_

His brain is traitorous even if his mouth is... less so

Dick breaks eye contact with Roy, and looks back down to the items and boxes surrounding him “I… can get that” he picks up a an interlocking wooden puzzle box, turning it in his hands, but not pulling the pieces apart.

“This isn’t like, a ploy or anything, I’m not, like, trying to take anything now, but, do you, umm, want a hand?” he looks down at his hands as if to illustrate the point “Or just a friend around?”

The look of relief on Dick’s face is immediate, it almost looks like he could cry

“I’d… really like that Roy, I’d just really like someone around who knew him, you know?”

Roy takes a seat opposite Dick, on the other side of one of the cardboard boxes

Dick hands him the wooden puzzle box “I don’t know what this is, I don’t think I’ve seen it before”

Roy has, and he turns the puzzle box over in his hands, pulling one of the segments, which causes all the segments to fall apart.

“Jason used to use it to keep his hands busy. If he was doing casework, research or homework” he starts the process of putting the box back together “or watching a movie, or if he needed to think over something he said it calmed him” he finishes the process, and the box is once more in one piece. If only other things in his life were as easy to put back together.

He hands the box back over to Dick, who looks it over in his hands again.

They continue to sort through Jason’s things, sometimes Dick comments one things “I think this was one of his favourite books, I’ve seen it around everywhere” sometimes Roy does “he really loved this reversible wonder woman hoodie, he wore it all the time, and would take it off any time to switch to the other side”

In the end Roy leaves the room with Dick early the next morning with the puzzle box, Jason’s favourite book, and 6 cigarette boxes, all with varying numbers of cigarettes in them, dick had lamented over the Robin’s nasty habit, neither of them commenting on the deadly nature of the habit however.

* * *

 

Years later another Robin gives him a photograph of Jason smoking a cigarette on top of a rooftop, and he slips it inside the front cover of the book, still kept with the cigarette boxes.

**Author's Note:**

> Wwwwhhhhyyy did I have to use snuck. Snuck or no snucking, snuck or no snucking. It’s a horrible word and also I hate English sometimes.
> 
> I don't even know.  
> Let me know if you love this, hate this, or if you also hate English :p  
> Also find me on tumblr candybarrnerd.tumblr.com


End file.
